Several types of memory devices, such as Flash memories, use arrays of analog memory cells for storing data. Each analog memory cell stores a quantity of an analog value, such as an electrical charge or voltage, which represents the information stored in the cell. In Flash memories, for example, each analog memory cell holds a certain amount of electrical charge. The range of possible analog values is typically divided into regions, each region corresponding to one or more data bit values. Data is written to an analog memory cell by writing a nominal analog value that corresponds to the desired bit or bits.
Some memory devices, commonly referred to as Single-Level Cell (SLC) devices, store a single bit of information in each memory cell, i.e., each memory cell can be programmed to assume two possible memory states. Higher-density devices, often referred to as Multi-Level Cell (MLC) devices, store two or more bits per memory cell, i.e., can be programmed to assume more than two possible memory states.
Flash memory devices are described, for example, by Bez et al., in “Introduction to Flash Memory,” Proceedings of the IEEE, volume 91, number 4, April, 2003, pages 489-502, which is incorporated herein by reference. Multi-level Flash cells and devices are described, for example, by Eitan et al., in “Multilevel Flash Cells and their Trade-Offs,” Proceedings of the 1996 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), New York, N.Y., pages 169-172, which is incorporated herein by reference. The paper compares several kinds of multilevel Flash cells, such as common ground, DINOR, AND, NOR and NAND cells.
Eitan et al., describe another type of analog memory cell called Nitride Read Only Memory (NROM) in “Can NROM, a 2-bit, Trapping Storage NVM Cell, Give a Real Challenge to Floating Gate Cells?” Proceedings of the 1999 International Conference on Solid State Devices and Materials (SSDM), Tokyo, Japan, Sep. 21-24, 1999, pages 522-524, which is incorporated herein by reference. NROM cells are also described by Maayan et al., in “A 512 Mb NROM Flash Data Storage Memory with 8 MB/s Data Rate”, Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC 2002), San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 3-7, 2002, pages 100-101, which is incorporated herein by reference. Other exemplary types of analog memory cells are Floating Gate (FG) cells, Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) cells, magnetic RAM (MRAM) cells, Charge Trap Flash (CTF) and phase change RAM (PRAM, also referred to as Phase Change Memory—PCM) cells. FRAM, MRAM and PRAM cells are described, for example, by Kim and Koh in “Future Memory Technology including Emerging New Memories,” Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Microelectronics (MIEL), Nis, Serbia and Montenegro, May 16-19, 2004, volume 1, pages 377-384, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Some of the memory cells in a memory device may be defective. Several methods and systems for operating memory devices having defective memory cells are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,877,986, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a system of Flash memory chips with controlling circuits. The system is able to remap and replace defective cells with substitute cells. The remapping is performed automatically as soon as a defective cell is detected. When the number of defects in a Flash sector becomes large, the whole sector is remapped.
As another example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,034,891, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a system, which stores data intended for defective memory cells in a row of a memory array in an overhead location of the memory row. The data is stored in the overhead packet during a write operation, and is read from the overhead packet during a read operation. A defect location table for the row of the memory array is provided to identify when a defective memory cell is addressed. During a write operation, the correct data is stripped from incoming data for storing into the overhead packet. During a read operation, the correct data is inserted from the overhead packet into an output data stream.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,170,802, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a non-volatile memory, in which bad columns in the array of memory cells can be removed. Substitute redundant columns can replace the removed columns. Both of these processes are performed on the memory in a manner that is externally transparent and, consequently, need not be managed externally by the host or controller to which the memory is attached. The bad column can be maintained on the memory. At power up, the list of bad columns is used to fuse out the bad columns.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2007/0103978, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a memory array having redundant columns. Defective cells are individually remapped to redundant cells in a redundant column. Redundant cells in one redundant column replace defective cells in multiple non-redundant columns. Remapping is done as part of initial test and configuration. The scheme can be implemented by specific hardware or by firmware in the memory controller.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,200,959, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a solid-state memory array that is used to store sequential data in a prescribed order. The memory includes an information list containing addresses and defect types of previously detected defects. A controller can reference the information list so that writing or reading of the data will skip over the defective locations in the memory. New defects may be detected during writing by failure in verification, and those new defects will also be skipped.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,558,967, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a manufacturing method for a multiple-bit-per-cell memory. The method tests memory arrays in the memory and separately sets the number of bits stored per cell in each memory array. Memory arrays that testing proves are accurate when writing, storing, and reading a larger number of bits per cell are set to store more bits per cell, and memory arrays that cannot accurately write, store, or read as many bits per cell are set to store fewer bits per cell.